Five Reasons Why Blogging Is A Terrible Side Hustle

Inside: The internet is full of people telling you it’s easy to make money with a blog. I call BS; here’s why blogging is a terrible side hustle for some people.

Hey! You! Do you want to make hundreds of thousands of dollars while staying at home in your footie PJs? No one even has to know about those holes covering your nether bits! If so, then try my five-minute guide to blogging!

Have you ever read any advertisements like this? I’ll be honest; I was lured in by wording like this too, and for other reasons that I’ll get to later in this post.

It seems like the internet is full of bloggers blogging about how to blog (sometimes even about how to teach others to blog).

Yep. I’ll let you wrap your head around that one for a minute.

Almost every successful blogger you see out there has a guide about how to start your own blog, whether they actually blog about My Little Ponies or Twilight fan fiction. Hell, who knows—maybe I’ll even come up with one of these guides someday.

If you’re not a blogger, let me explain the reason behind this weird phenomenon: those bloggers are getting paid big bucks to point you in the direction of website hosting providers. It’s called affiliate marketing and just about all moneymaking bloggers do it; myself included. It’s how you pay the bills.

If blogger X refers you to website hosting provider Y, they get a cut of the sales. A perennial favorite hosting providers for bloggers to recommend is Bluehost (not an affiliate link), and if you sign up through their affiliate link, they’ll get paid $65.

That’s just $7 shy of their most popular hosting plan. Plus, they suck as a hosting company. If you get to the point where you actually do make any money from your blog, you’ll need to go through the hassle of migrating your website to a hosting provider that’s worth a damn.

Why is blogging a terrible side hustle idea?

Regardless of what everyone else (who are sometimes getting paid huge sums to point you to a sub-par service) says, I don’t think blogging is the instant ticket to making your riches. I do think that it’s a good side hustle idea—for only a select few.

In fact, I’ll come out and say it: I think blogging is a terrible side hustle idea…for many people.

Here’s why.

Reason #1: It’s more likely that you’ll fail than succeed at blogging

Fact: The internet is a graveyard of abandoned blogs. Like Knit Nerd Lab (my very first!).

When you first get the brain tickle to start a blog, you know that the odds aren’t good. There are still updates about some dude’s lunch from back in 1995, for Pete’s sake. He gave up in 1996.

But, you tell yourself that you’re different. You’ve got a message to spread to the world, and the go-get’em attitude to tell it. After all, you didn’t give up the middle school cross country team until you could earn at least one medal at a meet (even if it was a participation medal).

Here’s the thing, though: blogging requires a different kind of persistence. One that they didn’t teach people in school, that fewer people have learned so far in life, and that most people aren’t down with. More on that below.

Moral of the story: you may succeed. But 1,000 other people who started with you will fail.

Reason #2: You probably won’t actually make any money

Blogging: Doing a shit ton of work and hoping it’ll turn out one day.

Blogging is like planting a seed.

A seed inside of a petri dish that you engineer a robot to care for, and then ship it off to Mars with the hopes of establishing a new rainforest.

It takes a looooooong damn time to make any money of significance. I just started last year, and want to know my total revenue? $14.63.

Yes, there are those freak bloggers who make tons of money right out of the gate. To them, I say this: you need to meet up with Stephen Hawking, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Bill Nye to form a brain trust and save the world. Seriously.

Most bloggers agree that it takes several years of building up a following before you ever make any real money from your blog.

And because it takes so long, most people quit far before then because they find out they can’t actually make hundreds of dollars next month while staying at home in their footie PJs. Thus, I’d wager my Uncle Bob that most people never actually earn enough to buy a month’s worth of Netflix.

Reason #3: It’s easy to spend too much money on blogging

The Interwebz are chock-full of frustrated bloggers trying to figure out something—anything—that they can do to finally make it big.

If you’re one of those bloggers, you know well that your Facebook feed is full of other bloggers touting products that will aide you in your quest. Every other damn post is an ad from a different blogger telling you that if you just buy their course for $1,200, you will finally unlock access to the Holy Grail.

Almost none of these products ever come with a guarantee that it’ll be the thing to make you one of the Chosen Few (for obvious reasons). If I were to pack up shop tomorrow and give up blogging today, I’d lose out on over a grand that I’ve invested into this blog so far.

Reason #4: It will distract you from other, more promising side hustles

I probably worked on my blog at least as much as my freelance writing business. How much more would I have now if I focused on actual paid work rather than my blog?

‘Nuff said.

But I will say more.

If you need money pronto, then blogging is not the side hustle for you. You need to consider other side hustles if you’re still living in the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle or haven’t saved up at least a small emergency fund.

You don’t have to give up your blogging dreams; just put them on the backburner while you move your way to a more stable situation. Then, use that experience as writing fodder for your blog and pen (type?) the shit out of it.

Reason #5: You will feel like a failure

People generally start blogs for a few reasons:

To make money

To make their voice heard

To help others

To post pictures of lunches

Except for that last one, all of these rely on other people coming to your blog.

By now, you know that most blogs fail. Why do they fail?

Spoiler alert: No one comes to their blog.

Most of your first year (or even years) of blogging will basically be shouting into an empty room. And if your goal is to share your personal genius with the world, that hurts. If your goal is to make money, that hurts.

It’s sort of like when you’re the last kid to the lunchroom, and there are no seats with your friends left. Or, you write a love letter to a secret crush that ends up in a flurry of embarrassment and disappointment.

You could spend hours writing something that quite honestly is genius, baring your soul to the world, and get a single comment on your blog: “What’s it take to become a sublime exoednupr of prose like yourself?” from the esteemed “Canadian-rx-meds” with a link to a spam website (this is an actual comment I picked up from my blog).

These feelings of failure are further compounded by the legions of seemingly successful bloggers. They could do it; why can’t you? Surely the dysfunction must be in you. That, or maybe they really can see the holes in your footie PJs.

Whispers of doubt starts to nag at you each day. You try to fend them off like stray bits of grass caught in a weed-whacker, but some stick.

Only the people who’ve cropped out or pushed past these nagging doubts ever become successful. And, I think, they still probably feel these doubts even still.

So, is blogging really a terrible side hustle idea?

For some people, absolutely. Most people, in fact, especially if you count the general public full of people who can’t even figure out how to log onto the dang-nabbit Google machine.

Blogging is one long Olympic-length marathon in persistence, adaptability, and conquering mindf@#ks.

Blogging: A mental version of climbing a mountain when you just might be out of shape.

But, for those who are able to stick with it, there are big rewards (or so the leprechaun told me). More on that in next week’s blog post… Make sure to sign up below to get on the newsletter so you don’t miss it!

What do you think? What reasons can you think of that blogging would be a terrible side hustle? Leave a comment below!

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37 Comments

I couldn’t agree more! I just launched my site earlier this month and have found all of the above points to be true. Best advice I heard about blogging before I started was: “If you wouldn’t do it for free, don’t do it at all.”

Despite having virtually no expectations, I still found myself sucked into checking my site stats daily. Wondering why no one was visiting my site and feeling bad when the one visitor I got in a day didn’t care to read more than one post.

Despite all of this, starting my blog may have been the best decision I’ve made (at least in a few years).

That’s a great piece of advice – yes, it’s not something you start with the goal of ending up where the big-name bloggers are; if you do end up there, it’s just a bonus.

I’m glad you’ve been enjoying it so far. Stats checking IS addictive – I figured out how to pull a webpage (Google Adsense) onto my iphone screen just like an app, and I think I pop open that sucker for a peek about 12 times a day – lol.

Keep at it – I will say I’ve gone through many, many months where it seems like no one visited at all, but as long as you keep at it and try to improve, you will get at least some traction. I may not have a lot of page views even compared to others who have started their blog at the same time as me, but I have gotten letters from people in my same exact position who I’ve inspired and helped – and even if I never get another page view again, that meant the world to me.

Isn’t it an extension of Goodwin’s Law that states that every online discussion about money eventually ends up as a discussion on how to make money online? 😉

I’m relatively new to the personal finance “scene”, but I’ve been quite amazed at how many bloggers that conflate personal finance as a subject with what’d be more suitable to publish at ProBlogger.net. I don’t mind, I’m just not personally interested in reading about how to start a blog when I check through my Personal Finance folder in Feedly. I would imagine the same goes for many others?!

Haha, it’s very true! It always amazes me how many people eventually migrate into the Blogging For Money realm.

It makes sense; on one hand, it CAN be a great way to make money. I think for most people though, they’d be better served in other areas. I wrote this post today because I don’t plan on being one of those bloggers who blog about blogging, but I would be remiss in my duties if I didn’t at least glance over the topic, especially as many people visiting my site are looking for ways to increase their income. 🙂

Yeah, it wasn’t intended as criticism towards this post, so I hope it didn’t come across that way. I thought it was a rather clever way of addressing it. And, for the most part, it rings true with my own experiences as someone who has been running websites for a living. So I found it a very entertaining post 🙂

Lindsay

March 22, 2017 at 10:37 pm

Thanks, I’m glad you enjoyed it! My favorite type of posts are the ones where someone points out something contrary to the herd, and I think I accomplished that with this post. 🙂

You hit the nail on the head. I am a new blogger (1 month in) and I am starting to realize the things you mentioned. Definitely not a get rich quick type of thing. Side hustles are meant to bring in supplemental income. If you are not doing that, then it is just a time consuming (and possibly expensive) hobby. Like you said, it takes time to build up content and an audience. Which means there is a huge time and effort investment upfront before you see any return. Many of the Blogger Pros teach that you are to approach your blog like a business. Well if you were a business, and you had to pay rent for many months with no income, you will eventually end up out of business. Something to think about.

You make some great points on why blogging isn’t the best side hustles, and I definitely agree that there are better side hustles out there! Blogging takes A LOT of time and can be exhausting, especially when you put in so much work to see a very little return in money. Those who make it big, good for them.. I would love to learn how they made it!

Me too! I’m starting to realize more and more that while the big-name bloggers do have great content, a lot of them got there by exploiting avenues that aren’t really open anymore. For example, a lot of people used Pinterest to skyrocket their blogs to fame, but the tricks they used back then no longer work thanks to algorithm changes.

But as long as you stick with it (and don’t need the money right away, ha ha), you will get somewhere.

Absolutely agree! I’ve been blogging for nearly 3 years and the struggle is real. I think the most important things to know if you’re considering starting a blog are how much time and money you need to invest to even hope of making it a success (especially time).

That’s a great idea – decide up-front how much you’ll be working on it. I see a lot of people just getting started out who post like once per month, and unless they’re super-stars who know how to pull all the right cords, it’s going to take a looong time on top of an already long process to get anywhere at all.

I only wish I had enough time to blog 3X week or more – maybe then I’d be growing a lot faster at least!

Haha, it really does seem like a pyramid scheme! I’ll have to check out your blog post you mentioned; it sounds fantastic! 🙂

And I think you hit the nail on the head too…blogging can be a great way to make money, but it really is not a short term or low-effort way to do it. I think I might steal that line from you if you don’t mind. 🙂

What an awesome post! I was half expecting to come here and see a “blogging is a terrible side-hustle unless you sign up for my $500 course/buy my $82 ebook” kind of thing. Really happy to see someone shining line on the realistic side of blogging.

Fun post! Not sure I agree with all your points here. I’ve been blogging since July 2009 and haven’t stopped publishing 3X a week on average since despite working banking hours the first 3 years and being tempted to sit on my butt and do nothing after leaving the work force!

I truly believe if you can speak forever, you can blog forever. Am I being delusional? Or is this the truth? There’s an endless amount of stuff to write about. Can’t keep up actually!

I never felt like a failure b/c when you start from 0, there’s nothing but upside whooo hooo! And even with my site size nothing, I still think there’s nothing but upside b/c there are 3 billion+ people on the internet, and it’s growing everyday!

Maybe I’m just a super optimistic, but I haven’t found any other endeavor where there’s this much correlation with effort and reward.

That’s a great point – when you’re starting from nothing, there’s nowhere to go but up!

I think blogging does have the potential to be a great side hustle, but as with any profession, it’s not suitable for everybody or even most people, in some cases.

Many of my blog readers are just learning about money management for the first time and aren’t even out of the paycheck to paycheck cycle yet, and for someone like that, blogging is not the answer. They need money like yesterday, not three years from now.

Luckily for me I can still pay my bills each month, I have a lot to say on the subject of personal finance, and I think blogging is super fun (only partially because I can wear pajamas while doing it), so I intend to do this for as long as I’m able!

BTW; check out next week’s post when I talk about 5 ways that blogging is a fantastic side hustle idea 🙂

Ah, no worries! You can switch over whenever you want. I think there’s like a 90-day limit for transferring your domain name to a new provider if you just bought it, but you can transfer your hosting at any time.

For me, I had Hostgator just starting out (very similar to Bluehost) and it was fine until I decided I wanted to rank for SEO. Hostgator and Bluehost use servers that just aren’t up to snuff and have poor loading speeds. I tested my page and it took >7 second on average to load, and it was costing me a lot of pageviews because people gave up (I would have, too). I switched to a new host and my page load speed cut in half, but I’m still working to tweak it down even more.

The dude who helps me with my tech problems has a post about the best web hosting providers here. I switched to SiteGround and they transferred my site over for free, gave me a free SSL certificate (also helps with SEO), and they have fantastic customer service so far.

Love this post! If I see another post about how to start a blog and requisite affiliate link to blue host I’m going to go crazy =) And with the course…I bought one…it was okay but the testimonials from other bloggers made it sound like the best thing since sliced bread. Of course there’s an affiliate link in those reviews to that course. I’ve been blogging for almost 4 years but not as consistently since there’s the full time job and 2 kids…and I still feel like a newbie, and probably earn the same as one too! As Gary said, the struggle is real! If I was doing it for the money, I would have quit long ago. Look forward to your post about why it’s a great side hustle.

I think blogging only works as a side hustle when you focus on your readers and the content over monetization. Nobody wants to read a spammy site, after all. I do think blogging is a good way to build up other hustles–I use my blog as a portfolio to get freelance writing work.

Exactly – it’s a weird business that you’re not really supposed to approach as a business…unless acting as if it isn’t a business is part of the long-term business strategy? Ahh, it’s enough to make my head spin. 🙂

And, it is good for getting other side hustle work. I have quite a few writing clients, but I always wonder how many of them would be willing to work with me if I didn’t have my blog? No one’s ever contacted me through the blog, though.

I haven’t been blogging enough to know any better, but your concerns are my concerns as well. I have a lot of thoughts about this topic actually. Why I think bloggers fail;

1. Lack of persistence, they expect immediate rewards and have a “If I write it they will come mentality.”
2. Lack of promotion, sort of related to the point above. They write and write, but they don’t spend time promoting their blog. So no one reads it.
3. They are freaked out by successful bloggers. I have noticed many of these bloggers have been doing this for a very long time, do podcasts, interview, guest writing, etc. They are out there making it happen. One local finance blogger where I live was even on the local news talking about tax season. That is not a bad way to get readers, instead of hoping and praying for the Google God’s to bail you out with their search results. Just sayin’.
4. They write for a niche that doesn’t have broad appeal. I read a blog from a cop, blogging about big money policing. I wonder, though, how far someone can take a blog that only a fraction of the population is interested in.
5. They don’t have enough experience to write about. Most of what I write about is from years and years of reading and practice and planning my early retirement exit. This stuff shoots off my mind, and I don’t do a ton of research, as research is all I’ve done all along. I see people writing very fluffy stuff, and that sometimes works, but I am not sure it will bring people back, other than a fluffy post.
6. Twitter, I don’t get twitter. I have followers on Twitter coming out of the woodwork, yet I rarely get referrals to my website from Twitter. The oppose is true with facebook, I get plenty of referrals but no likes. Go figure. I do comment and post a lot, on facebook, with my business website account instead of my personal one, when it makes sense to do so.

I have expectations to make money eventually. I have no goal of making a living off of blogging, but I would like to cover my cost. To do so, I am going to try new things that I’ve never done before. Sure I am nervous about these things, but those are usually the best things to try. Eventually I won’t be nervous anymore and have more followers on my blog. Right now it’s a trickle, I am hoping more for a waterfall.

You’re right; there are way more reasons that a blogger could fail at blogging than to be successful.

And good for you for trying new things! I’ve always found that the best things in life start from when you’re so scared you’re about ready to pee your pants. 🙂

Also, I don’t get a huge amount of referrals from Twitter, but i do have Hootsuite set up to send out a tweet for at least one of my old posts per day. I have an Excel spreadsheet where I keep all the tweets, and then once a month I’ll go in and populate my calendar by copying/pasting the tweets in, and adding the cover images. Not a ton of traffic, but anything helps me at this point. 🙂

That’s cool that you still have your old blog up! Most blogs die off from the web since the person doesn’t want to pay the hosting costs anymore. I still have up my first ever website I created when I was 13, haha.

I always encourage people to start a blog but position it more from the standpoint of being a good personal development activity rather than a way to quickly make money. I do like those ‘how to start a blog’ posts since I wish more of them had been around when I was first creating websites (I could have avoided webs and WordPress.com). I’m not really sure where I stand on bloggers recommending Bluehost. I used Bluehost as my hosting provider for three years and didn’t have much problems with them. I switched to Siteground a few months ago and did notice my page load times improved and Siteground’s customer service is better.

Anyways, blogging is good thing but it making money from it shouldn’t be the main motivator in starting it.

Oh man, I created so many websites back in the day with Geocities and Angelfire…I wonder if they’re still there? Sort of like a time capsule, haha.

That’s a great way to look at it; I’ve gained a ton of stuff from blogging, but very little of it has been money. Most of it has just been inoculating myself to doing scary things like interacting with other people. 🙂

HAHAHAHAHAHA. All solid points, though I’m in the middle of writing a post about how we make all our money from blogging ($1000+ a month from BFS), pet care ($3000+ a month), and roommates ($500+ a month). With a link to Bluehost since I use them for my own secondary sites. Hehehehe. In Bluehost’s defense, they’re a solid discount hosting plan. Just any site that grows up needs a not discount hosting plan. So my little sites can stay cheap monthly ($6 for all) and BFS costs $20 a month by itself. Ugh.

But like someone else mentioned above, if you wouldn’t blog for free, than don’t blog at all. It’s definitely a slow build to anything with it money-wise usually (unless the affiliate marketing fairy stick hits them hard). BUT, like you did, using it as a platform into freelance writing, social media management, being a virtual assistant, etc…that’s a good way to have a blog you love and make money too. 🙂

But do you know the difference between a success and fail in blogging? It’s just continuing to post. That’s it. The reason so many sites fail is because everyone is hunting for that one side hustle or hobby that really clicks. And the ones that keep blogging have just found out that writing and building communities (granted, generally tiny communities) is what their heart loves. 🙂 It’s why I still write 7 years later…

I love this advice – just keep putting material out there and eventually it’ll build up a critical mass and take off.

I also agree – it’s not necessarily a bad thing to drop out of blogging if your goal is to find The One Side Hustle. Lord knows I’ve tried a helluva lot of others things myself and dropped out before I found the stuff that clicks.

Great post and I agree with a lot of the points you made here. To me, the only way a blog can truly survive in the long term is if you’re writing about a subject you LOVE and are able to ignore your site stats for (at least) the first year. Making money blogging is really a marathon, not a sprint. Thanks for being brutally honest in this post!

I always say life, period is a marathon. At times you gotta know when to sprint, when to slow down and when to change pace. I think you pointed this out, but the only way you become successful as a blogger is by sticking with it. Do it for enough years and you will eventually find your niche and actually earn money rather than lose money doing it. I’ve had my blog at The Hustle Never Ends for almost two years now and that first year and some change I didn’t earn a thing. And I kept changing the type of website it was until I finally figured out what works for it and it is what it is today. But I would say to those starting off, if you truly want to do this, give it a couple years. At the very least you will learn A LOT. Don’t start off with the mindset of making money right away, think of it more like school or hands on education. Once you get good at it, just like anything else, the money will find you eventually. Good post btw Linday, and awesome blog you have here!

Thanks! Yep, I’ve been using this as a learning opportunity and a way to get into the community first and foremost right now. I really would love to make some money with it, so we’ll see how it goes down the road! 🙂